When I was with Dan, I was miserable. I'd just gotten out of a physically abusive relationship, and I was incredibly vulnerable. I was also heavily addicted to cocaine, scared of having to move back to England and constantly worried that the man who had raped me was going to get out of prison. I was unhappy, I was scared, and I didn't know what to do.
As I've mentioned in previous posts, Dan was incredibly abusive. The shouting, the insults, the going out all night, and not telling me where he was going or if he'd be home. It filled me with misery that I convinced myself wasn't there. I did my best to convince myself I was happy, but I wasn't. I thought I loved him, but that treatment wasn't love. The people who love you don't treat you like that.
I've also mentioned in the past that I don't want kids. I'd be a terrible mother, and I hate children. At one point during our relationship, I thought I was pregnant because my period was late. I told Dan, and he sat in silence, angry and refusing to talk about it. I wasn't, obviously. My body was shutting down because of how much I was abusing it. Dan said that he wanted me to get clean so my body could be healthy enough for us to have kids, and I thought I could see myself having children with him. When you're vulnerable, you'll fall for anything and anyone, and the abuse I have put up with is testament to that.
One of the ways I tried to get Dan to stop treating me the way I did was to ask him how he would feel if someone treated our future daughter how he treated me. Yes, that was a line that actually left my mouth. I was willing to put up with his abuse, but couldn't find a way of getting him to treat me better other than mentioning a human being that didn't exist. Unsurprisingly, it didn't work. He wouldn't even change his behaviour towards the woman he claimed to want to have children with by thinking about how he would feel if someone treated his child in the same way. I put up with so much from him because I was so unhappy, but I had nowhere else to go. I wasn't on the lease, I couldn't afford to live alone, and I didn't even exist in the eyes of the council. I was just there, being nothing more than a rent payment that dramatically exceeded his. His parents "let me live there," and that's all the situation ever was. The entire 9 months we were together were some of the worst of my life.
The reason I'm thinking about this today is that I'm reading the final book in a wonderfully awful series that I plan on reading again and again and again. It involves a guy in his early twenties being in a relationship with someone with a kid that he automatically saw as his own child. I'm fully aware that this is fiction, but it also happens in real life. Neither of my parents' partners ever saw me as their own. I was just someone who came along with my mum or dad. Thinking about how my own parents treated me in terms of including me in their future relationships definitely shaped how I allow myself to be treated today. It baffles me that I can be so strong in some areas of my life, but so weak in others.
Thinking about this I've decided I want to go on a dating fast for a while. I use the word dating very loosely and think that I might even be taking a break from hooking up with new people, I don't really know. All I do know is that I have to address how I allow people to treat me. I just don't know where to start.
Stay safe on the road
Jess
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